STYRITOS - THE POLITICALLY CORRECT SNACK
(C)1992 Alan M. Schwartz
What obtains when a paste of cornstarch, water and fish oil is
explosively puffed by heat? I call it the San Francisco AG.
This is what emerges when an event is packaged by weight, not
volume, and some settling occurs during shipment.
An Annual Gathering plays host to 1500 Mensans. Their motivation
is bread and circuses in that order. They want to eat like pigs,
be entertained, perhaps view something just a little bit naughty,
socialize with their comrades, and maybe luxuriate in a tawdry
humid frenzy of interpersonal relationship (sex). Those were not
hamster shower caps in the registration envelopes! It sounded
good to me. My lady and I attended the hoopla hustled by the
nation's largest Mensa group in a city known for political and
sexual free thought, and outrageous convention stories.
One questions the wisdom of holding the big blood drive on the
morning of that evening's big dance. Simultaneous scheduling of
that dance, the MERF auction, and a sex slideshow is not clever.
Assigning a banquet's entertainment to a beer-gutted Native
American, his lover, and a gaggle of their children all painted
like Frederick's of Oakland and stomping about while atonally
wailing re Great Spirits is enough to give even an untenured
cultural anthropologist a raging hard-off. They delayed dessert
for 45 minutes while they preached the love of all mankind with
the stipulation that native American Indians get a 10%
commission. They were endlessly boring.
What food and drink there was, when the hospitality suites were
not shut down, was both awful and in short supply. Styritos,
those legendary shrimp-stinking oily plastic foam emulations of
polystyrene packing chips, were in abundant and endless supply.
Even THEY got eaten. I attest under oath that they less stick to
your ribs than hold on for 24 hours before going bungee jumping
in your gastrointestinal tract.
What happens when you bus 40 people at a time fifteen miles down
the road? If the waiting line is 800 Mensans strong you get a
crowd well prepared to discover their $35 gourmet dinner consists
of a scoop of rice, a dab of blackened fish-like semisolid
composite, a strawberry, a tub of pale green dip that may have
been derived from dairy products - or more likely petrochemicals
- and soft drinks in tiny ice-filled tumblers hawked a la carte.
It takes real guts for a caterer to assign two servers and one
line to feed 800 people. I have personally witnessed birth
control devices larger than their paper plates. The last 200
people at the Exploitatorium saw empty platters. I have had
better meals delivered through a nasogastric tube for about the
same price.
The scheduled events were inspired. Many of the interesting
speakers canceled, alleviating the inevitable crowding to have
been precipitated by their appearance. Topics were clustered
nicely, opening yawning ennui gaps punctuated by three
simultaneous interesting events. The outstanding events of the
four day extravaganza were the OC Mensa Treasure Hunt winners
pooling their $75 prize to buy giant survival size tubs of ice
cream for the masses; Chicago Mensa erecting a lavish crabmeat
(well, surimi) and cocktail sauce emergency eating room one
midnight; and some impromptu skinny dipping in the hotel hot tub.
SF Mensa only has about 2500 members. One must lower
expectations commensurate with local resources.
The essence of maintaining a politically correct facade lies
within the concept of White Guilt. Each and all representatives
of caterwauling physical, racial, ethnic, religious, national and
economic indigent groups must be indulged to the exclusion of the
excellence of those cohorts capable of consequential achievement.
Being politically correct is paying everybody's bar bills but
personally going home sober and much the poorer. The SF AG was
politically correct and uselessly, deplorably shoddy.
I believe in the manifest destiny of the most vigorous men and
women. My politically correct attitude is one of leaving bodies
in my wake. When America metamorphosed from a competitive
plutocracy to a Welfare State, it underwent economic collapse and
may well have died. If that is the price of gifting my inferiors
with the wealth and privilege of a productive life, then the
price is too high.
I look forward to an AG run by people who harbor no regrets for
partaking of their favorite pleasures in abundance. If this
celebration cruelly disenfranchises the 98% who beg rather than
persevere, I invite them to take their complaints to the Reverend
Malthus and a fellow named Darwin.